This article discusses planning considerations for deploying and configuring a new server farm for a search-first migration. For this article, it is assumed that you are knowledgeable about the following:

The SharePoint Server 2007 farm that the organization is using in a production environment, with SharePoint enterprise search deployed.

New farm

A new SharePoint Server 2010 farm that you deploy and initially use only for the search-first migration.

Search-first environment

An environment in which a search-first migration is complete. In this environment, end users can use SharePoint Server 2010 search-query features and search-results features when they submit search queries in the original farm or the new farm.

The first main step in a search-first migration is to deploy a new SharePoint Server 2010 farm. In a search-first environment, the purpose of the new farm is to provide SharePoint Server 2010 search functionality for end users when they perform searches in the original farm. To provide search results for the content that is in the original farm, the search system in the new farm must crawl that content, create a content index, and respond to queries from users of the original farm. Therefore, the new farm must accommodate the crawl, index, and query demands that were previously handled by the original farm only. Beyond this minimum requirement, planning the new farm is similar to planning any new search deployment. Depending on how much search load is expected in the new farm, the organization might design the new deployment as a dedicated search farm. On the other hand, it might be appropriate to plan the deployment so that it can later also provide other SharePoint Server 2010 services. In either case, the organization should design the new farm to keep the search infrastructure flexible, so that the farm can be scaled out later as necessary to meet evolving business and user requirements. Other planning considerations for the new farm include geographic distribution, governance, high availability, and disaster recovery.

Planning and architecture for SharePoint Server 2010. This section provides guidance about how to design the logical and physical aspects of a SharePoint Server 2010 farm to provide a scalable, highly reliable, and consistently available system. The section includes resources such as the following: